


The Chiroptologist and the Movie Buff

by PureBatWings



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - After College/University, Animagus, Bats, Endangered Species, M/M, Severus Snape Lives, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-07
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2018-08-13 12:27:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7976776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PureBatWings/pseuds/PureBatWings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry studies bats for a living. Severus has found a refuge in a small town in Wales and Harry tracks a tagged bat to Severus' home...</p><p>Usual legal disclaimers apply. Not my characters, not for money, no copyright infringement implied.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Batty over You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Boy meets bat, boy tags bat. Bat flies off into the night...

“Stop struggling,” he suggested conversationally, the wooden wand held firmly in his hand. His captive continued to flail in the netting that ensnared him.

“Believe me, you’d hate the aftereffects of a _Petrificus Totalis curse_ ,” said Harry warningly. He had spent many evenings tracking this wily winged aberration, so he wasn’t about to let it get away so easily. Almost as if it understood, the bat stopped thrashing about.

“That’s more like it. Let me get a good look at you,” he added conversationally, as he deftly untangled the claw of one of its wings from the net’s filament and wrapped it in a towel, leaving a wing free. He pulled a metal tracking tag from the pocket of his field vest.

Before the bat could protest or struggle further, he’d clipped a metal tag on the leading edge of its wing with a practiced move using tweezers and used surgical glue to attach a radio transmitter to the skin of its back. Neither tag would prevent it from flying or hurt the creature, but Harry had also included a few spells of his own devising to make sure the radio chip on the tag wouldn’t get removed accidentally or fall off.

He pulled the rest of the bat free of the towel and held it gently but firmly in his gloved hand. It was an adult male. He weighed it and flipped it over to observe it. Yup, grayish belly fur typical of _Myotis myotis_ , the Greater Mouse-eared Bat. The species had been very rare in the British Isles during most of the twentieth century, being declared extinct in 1990 in the UK. Since then, a few males hibernating in southern England had been found in 2002. He wondered if this guy was native or, more likely, a European immigrant.

"So… where’s your colony then? You got a lady friend having your pups in a nice old attic or cave?” The bat blinked its dark eyes at Harry and then turned his head away.

“I’m sure you don’t want to be alone, going the route of Martha the passenger pigeon,” Harry commented, measuring the bat’s body length and wingspan and noting the data down in his Moleskin notebook. “You’ll end up a bitter old bat, just as solitary as I am, talking to creatures who can’t talk back.” The bat chittered at him and struggled. His observation notes finished, he opened his hand. “Go on, then, maybe we’ll meet again.” It flapped off into the twilight towards the north and west.

Aunt Petunia had hated bats. What was more, she had been irrationally afraid of them. Her Duddykins might get bitten and get rabies. Never mind only a very very small percentage of bats were rabid and that humans were far more deadly to bats than the reverse.

Harry thought that any bat stupid enough to chomp on his cousin would die swiftly from clogged arteries from the fat. Never mind that vampire bats were native only to Central and South America, not Surrey, England. English bats consumed mostly insects and fruit, not Dursley blood.

Anything that Petunia hated and Dudley feared was cool in Harry’s eyes. One of the reasons he loved to hang out at the Astronomy Tower at Hogwarts wasn’t to snog girls (or boys) but to observe its bat colony. After the war was over, with Voldemort dead and the media frenzy about The Boy who Conquered had subsided to a duller roar, Harry had passed his NEWTS with distinction and, like Severus Snape before him, he had disappeared, presumably into the muggle world.

A few pulled strings, a few created school records and Alfred Wayne Harrison, “Harry” to his caving buddies and fellow zoology majors, had matriculated at Trinity University in Texas. San Antonio had been an excellent place to lie low, study hard, meet some cute bi-curious frat boys and some definitely gay and talented male music majors. For years the sound of someone practicing scales reminded him of Chris, his jazz pianist boyfriend from junior year.

Harry practiced rock climbing and caving on breaks in Kentucky and Tennessee and interned tracking bats in Alabama and Texas with Bat Conservation International. His favorite place to hang out in the summer was San Antonio's Camden Street Bridge at twilight, watching thousands of bats spiral up into the sky, in search of tasty bugs.

After a post-doc fellowship, he’d returned to England, happy to be home after over a decade incommunicado in the States. His latest job was working for Bat Conservation Trust helping coordinate volunteer groups doing surveys and observations of bat populations. However, in his free time, he followed up on sightings of the rarer species, and sometimes, like tonight, flying low on his broom, he got lucky. A report of a possible Myotis sighting in the vicinity of the Welsh marches had brought him to Wales’ rugged mountains where there was no shortage of caves, barns and old timbered buildings to tempt bats.

++++++++++++++++

Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the lousy world, Harry Potter had to end up in his local on a Saturday night for a pint, Severus thought, channeling Bogart in _Casablanca_. It had been a pleasantly peaceful dozen or so years without the decidedly mixed pleasure of seeing the young man alive and in person. Not that he didn't look good, he'd gained a few inches and his compact frame was nicely muscular. The heavy glasses were gone, presumably he'd gotten his eyesight taken care of with surgery or a potion or contact lenses.

Severus had changed his life and looks too. He spent his copious free time doing potions research and working his way first through Hitchcock’s oeuvre and then delved into film noir with a bit of Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman along the way. The regional library knew Sebastian Prince well. Each Friday he would return five videos and check another five out. Interlibrary loans and now, video streaming, fed his visual addiction. Amazon.uk assured him that film criticism and the occasional bit of gay male erotica, literary and photographic, made its way to his bookshelves in the small but elaborately warded farmhouse. His academic robes had morphed into black jeans or dark wool trousers, and a somber hued button down shirt. He'd had his hair cut shorter, in layers reminiscent of wings and added some silver to his temples to look older than his early fifties. His metal rimmed spectacles added to the retired and retiring academic persona and reputation he'd created and cultivated for himself around town. He lived a mostly muggle existence, aside from his potions lab, expanding pockets in his winter coat and what he deemed other convenient necessities.

He put a few pound coins down by his empty pint glass and tried to take a roundabout route to the front door without attracting Potter's attention or anyone else's notice. Luck was not with him.

“Seb! Seb Prince, resolve me and Davy’s bar bet. What’s the earliest vampire in a horror movie? My money’s on Nosferatu, that German guy.”  
Reluctantly Severus turned back towards the room. No need to upset his muggle drinking buddies without good cause. It had taken years of buying rounds to be accepted, after all. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Potter start and stare in his direction. Trust a Gryffindor to never learn subtlety, he thought, curling his lip.

“And Daffyd Davies, what would your guess be?” he drawled, ugly flashbacks of goading Hogwarts students into using the brains that differentiated them from houseplants rising in front of his eyes.

“There’s gotta be an earlier vampire film than that. Dracula,” said Davy decisively. “He’s the most famous vampire, after all.”

“Call it a draw, gentleman and buy each other a round. You’re half wrong, Davies, and you’re totally off, Jones. The first horror film on record is _Le Manoir du Diable_ in 1896, by George Melies. It’s three minutes long and has vampires, witches and other supernatural creatures in it,” decreed Severus, making swiftly for the door. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Potter finish his drink and slowly stand. He slammed the pub's door decisively behind himself and left a tripping charm as a little gift for Potter to discover on the pub's doorstop.

He ducked into an unwalled garden two doors over and took a short cut through an alleyway. His apparition disturbed a few amorous moggies, but he got to his home’s boundary wards unmolested by the bumptious Gryffindor. He wanted to talk with Potter, but on his terms and on his turf, not in front of an avid audience of gossips keen to pick up scraps of information about their village’s eccentric movie buff. Unfortunately all he needed to do was wait. Potter would come to him as surely as a compass needle turned northward.

He poured himself a few fingers of whiskey and set another glass out for his expected visitor. Soon enough, his gate creaked open. He waved a hand, letting the wards drop and the front door open slightly. He raised his voice.

“Get in here already, Potter. I’ve a bone or five to pick with you.”

Potter entered his house, apologies already on his lips, his wand sticking out of his pocket, glamoured to look like a mobile phone. He looked sheepish at stalking his former professor to his home. That was gratifying.

“I’m sorry about the Pensieve and not stopping Nagini using you as a chew toy, sir, and not writing—not that I’ve been in touch with anyone in the Wizarding world or knew where you had disappeared to—and…”

“Enough! You drink whiskey?” Severus barked the question and motioned him in to the parlor.

Harry nodded and carefully perched on the edge of the seat of the wing-back armchair across from Severus’ chair as his surly host poured a generous inch into the glass and passed it over.

“Where have you been, then, when you’re not popping up in my hometown pub like a demented Weasley jack in the box?”

“Oh, Kentucky where whiskey is as much a religion as in Scotland. And Texas and Alabama and in American caves and belfreys and barns,” said Harry. He sat up straight. "I'm pleased to see you, of course, but on a professional note, you have an unusual visitor in your house. I tracked him to the area this afternoon and he's probably roosting in your attic.”

He looked at Severus teasingly, waiting for a question about the older man's house guest or what concern it was of his.

“You’re a Chiroptologist,” said Severus flatly, as if that bland statement explained it all, and took a sip of his amber drink.

“How did you guess?” said Harry, choking on a swallow.

“You left me a few souvenirs the other night,” snarled Severus, his face shifting from detached to annoyed in five seconds, even though his heart wasn't truly in it. Harry looked befuddled.

Severus extended his left arm and stuck his hand in Potter's direction. On his pinky finger a familiar metal tag was firmly wrapped, like an aluminum ring, its ragged edges indicating Severus had tried to cut it off by mechanical as well as magical means --with limited success.

“Oh! I see…. you’re the _Myotis_ male I tagged last weekend and have been radio tracking. That explains why the signals led me here.”

“Quite. Do me the courtesy of removing it promptly.”

“So you really were a dungeon bat,” said Harry mischievously.

“Get your damned radio and metal tags off me, Potter.”

“I created some near unbreakable spells to aid my research while I was a starving grad student. Seems a shame to stop my tracking study after all this time… even if the bat in question is an animagus." Harry tapped his forefinger against his lips, pretending to ponder the implications of giving into Severus' command.

Severus growled and held out his hand again. With a sour look at having to resort to honey instead of his usual vinegar, he said, “Pretty please, Potter, remove it.”

Harry snickered, then grinned at him and took his hand. Drawing out his wand he muttered a few words in Parseltongue followed by a squeaking noise that evaporated into frequencies beyond Severus’ still keen human hearing. Harry followed up with a healing charm to the abused pinky finger and slipped the battered band into his pocket. He continued to hold Severus’ hand, Harry’s callused fingertips rubbing soothingly, no, make that not-at-all soothingly, Severus thought, on the his hand. Why would Harry wish to hold his hand?

“And the RFID chip? As I recall, that was a dorsal one. Would you like to keep it as a memento, like a heart tattoo with my initials and our reunion date?"

Severus rolled his eyes. Potter was being far too cheerful about this entire embarrassing event at his expense. He pulled off his pullover and unbuttoned his shirt and turned his back on Potter. Gentle fingers plucked it off from between his shoulder blades after a few more releasing spells. He felt a soothing healing charm on the bruised pinched skin. Warm hands lingered on his back briefly, caressing.

Okay, that definitely was not merely a friendly pat on the back, Severus thought, mind whirling. He twitched his shoulder blades in relief. “You have no idea how much that itched and tugged. And of course I couldn’t reach it easily to scratch.” He turned around to face Harry, pulling up his shirt over his shoulders and beginning the process of re-buttoning. He looked over at Harry who was standing very close to him, waiting, a smile twitching on his lips...

"Out with it, what do you want from me in repayment for your silence about my whereabouts and taking off the tags? A pound of my pinched flesh? Potions? A quick fuck? Me on my knees, repaying your kindness in trade?" If he expected Harry to be offended by his crudity, he was mistaken.

Harry's eyes darkened, and the smile dimmed somewhat. "I would never reveal your whereabouts. This isn't about paybacks or blackmail, we know each other's secrets all too well for that."

Severus raised an eyebrow, waiting.

"I thought-- well, I could possibly address some other itches you might have, Severus. I can’t imagine your small town provides many opportunities for dates or friends with benefits for gay men," suggested Harry, "and I haven't had anything but some substandard encounters since I came back from Texas. I want to not have to hide my wizarding side from a lover, and to have a non-Muggle lover I can trust not to throw me to the journalistic wolves."

"So you assume all confirmed bachelors such as myself must surely be bent?"

"My gaydar is as good as any bat's sonar," said Harry. "After all, you didn’t have a lady friend as a bat either. So, what do you say?” He waited, holding his breath for Severus' decision.

Severus looked at him, assessing. “If you want to befriend or date me, Harry, you need to provide the popcorn and I’ll provide the films. We’ll see,” Severus said, drawing out the pun, “what develops...”


	2. Seeing what Develops

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Severus' solitary pleasures are more than doubled with the addition of Harry to his life...

Seeing What Develops

Movies, films, cinema—whatever term one chose to use, they had been one of his favourite escapes, delights and solitary pleasures since he’d largely quit the claustrophobic morass of British wizarding society. He’d moved south and west from Scotland to Wales and lived a mostly Muggle existence.

When his war wounds ached in the cold weather, he consoled himself with the amusing spectacle of the palm trees growing down the lane in his neighbour’s garden. Palm trees in the land of mists and Merlin struck him as faintly ridiculous, never mind the climate permitted them to survive.

Lately though, watching movies alone had lost some of its appeal. Far more fun was his new routine of puttering around on a Friday evening, waiting for Harry to show up. He would phone in an order-- a nice takeaway from Naga’s Noshes, a fusion Indian/Middle Eastern place one town over that Harry would pick up on his trip to Severus’. Severus made sure to order enough chutney, tamarind sauce, paratha and either Saag Paneer or Chicken Kashmiri for two, along with some Kingfisher beers or Woodpecker cider to accompany their meal.

Not long after six, Harry and supper would arrive. Harry drove a semi-feral Ford Anglia that had belonged to the Weasley clan at some point. He’d found it in the Forbidden Forest and coaxed it into his ownership by promising it skilled muggle mechanics to rebuild its engine and a complete refurbishment. Now with its soft leather seats and Deco inspired wood interior it far more resembled a high end sports car.

Harry had had it painted a Halloween orange with black racing stripes, which, on closer inspection, were comprised of very small stenciled silhouettes of Harry’s devising—all sorts of bats. His vanity place, BATMAN was explained by the car’s decals which were from Bat Conservation groups, and two bumper stickers that read “B is for Bat” and another that said “I (heart symbol) bats!” Sometimes an aerial like those on old fashioned TV antennas on a telescoping pole hung half-way out of the boot: it was part of Harry’s bat tracking equipment.

Slowly Harry was introducing Severus to the world of bat studies and habitat conservation—a very different perspective than the world Severus had experienced as a bat animagus. He also liked the different reactions and perspectives Harry brought to watching films, including some of Severus’ old favorites.

“What movies have you already seen?” Severus asked Harry, when he’d agreed a few months ago that he would welcome Harry’s overtures to being at least friends with benefits.

“Oh, just bits on the telly,” said Harry dismissively. “There’s only so much one can see through a crack in a cupboard door, you know.”

“Do you remember any in particular?”

“Mm, the girl with magic shoes who travels around Oz. That had witches in it, so Petunia switched it off pretty soon after she was welcomed to Munchinkland. Oh, and there’s a war one where Atlanta burns and Scarlett wants to kill the Yankees. No magic in that one.”

“Fine then, I’ll have mercy on you and we’ll start with some more recent films first,” decided the movie buff. “Then we’ll go from the merely popular to truly great films.”

Harry shrugged. Anytime spent with Severus led to interesting discussions, there was no one else he’d rather talk with, and the other things the man could do with his mouth! Well, words failed Harry, but his moans seemed to be enough encouragement.

After seeing all of _The Wizard of Oz_ , Harry said, “The Wicked Witch of the West could’ve given Bella Lestrange a run for her money. But the film doesn’t go at all into the alliances the different magic creatures must have had to avoid territorial disputes…”

After a film about a man’s rise from poverty to become a newspaper magnate, Harry screeched at the ending. “Are you effing kidding me? It’s his sled?!”

They watched _Gone with the Wind_ one rainy November Saturday afternoon and evening with a break for tea time and fooling around on the couch. Harry’s verdict? The snogging was terrific and “Scarlett was brave enough to be a Gryffindor, but conniving enough to be a shoo-in for Slytherin.”

A science fiction series set in a galaxy far, far away…  
“I love you,” said Leia. “I know,” he replied.

“Arrogant as any Malfoy, but not nearly as well dressed,” proclaimed the Gryffindor, who was currently lounging in ratty blue jeans and a long sleeved T shirt that said “We can’t stop here! This is bat country!”

Severus then tried him on British costume dramas: _A Room with a View_ , Jeremy Brett’s version of Sherlock Holmes, the 1995 _Sense and Sensibility_. Harry chewed some of his pita pocket with falafel and tzatziki sauce. “Elinor Dashwood looks like a younger, saner version of Trelawney, isn’t that disturbing? And don’t you think Colonel Brandon has your nose, Severus?”

He peered at the screen. It was a Roman nose like his, but not nearly as crooked. The man hadn’t had Tobias use him as a punching bag a time or two. “Not really, I can’t say I see much of a resemblance,” he said dismissively.

“His eyes are a lighter brown than yours; I far prefer yours,” Harry said and flicked off the screen with a wave of his hand. He leapt up on the coffee table where he had been resting his stockinged feet and struck a Gilderoy Lockhart like pose.

“My lover’s eyes are black like a well burnished cauldron, stalwart in the flame,  
His hair dark as a bat’s wings taking flight at night. His eyes the onyx of undeveloped film,  
The Robe of Darth Vader, the deepness of the night around The African Queen.”

He hopped off and took a healthy swallow of his beer. “Thank you for welcoming me as your host to the Blackpool Film Festival, I’ll be here all week, try the Biryani.”

Severus huffed, half-pleased, definitely embarrassed but trying to hide his reaction. “You’re a barking mad lunatic, Potter. Save the versifying for your legions of admirers.”

“It’s free verse inspired by Shakespeare's sonnet 130,” said Harry. “I do admire you excessively, you know.”

“I’m going to go stretch my wings,” said Severus, changing the topic. Harry's praise still faintly embarrassed him. “If you’d like to accompany me?”

Severus took his nightly constitutional flight, doing a few swoops at Potter’s hair in retaliation for the poetry. He followed up with a barrel roll as Harry followed him easily on his broom. It was another solitary pleasure of his that now was shared with another.

“Any bat colonies nearby I haven’t checked out yet?” Harry asked the bat flying nearby.

Severus flicked his ears back in a yes gesture and wheeled, changing direction toward a church on a hill a few miles off. There wasn’t a roost in its belfry, but an unused stable one field over with a south facing roof hosted a colony of pipinstrelle bats.

The colony contained five banded bats among the dozens there. Approaching each one in turn in his Greater Mouse-eared bat form, Severus politely requested they show him the clips on their wings so the human standing outside wouldn’t need to catch them. Numbers fixed firmly in his memory, he flew back down to where Harry was waiting, broom in hand in the moonlight. He extended his left arm as Severus approached and the bat grabbed onto his nubbly fisherman’s cabled pullover.

“Thank you, this is so much easier than disturbing the mums and pups and getting the banded ones upset at getting caught again.”

Severus debated whether he should tell Harry later that the prevailing attitude was actually acute shame at getting caught, tempered with self-congratulation for being brave during a scary encounter with a human. By voluntarily landing on Harry, his street cred for being fearless had just skyrocketed to Quidditch World Cup nosebleed seat level heights.

He climbed up into Harry’s already windblown hair and launched himself homeward. On the way back they flew spirals around each other for fun. At the farmhouse, Harry opened the door, expecting Severus to fly in and change to his human form inside. Instead the bat landed on his shoulder and crawled down his chest, clinging upside down to the knit cables. His pointed nose sniffed deeply and appreciatively. Harry carried him inside and shut the door, and placed his broom against the mudroom’s wall.

“Would you be okay with my petting you in this form?”

He saw amusement in the dark round eyes and the bat’s head bobbed once. Carefully, Harry ran two gentle fingers over the bat’s back and along the amazing combination of muscles, bones and skin that allowed it the freedom of the skies.

Feeling magic gather, he tried to step back, as Severus retook his human shape.

Harry found his hands stroking the human skin of firm muscled shoulders and arms. His hand stilled on Severus’ chest above his heart.

“You can keep going, I’ll not forget the pipinstrelles’ numbers,” promised Severus, taking Harry’s hand to lead him to the bedroom.

“I think you could make me forget my own name for several minutes. I want you **so** much.”

“Which name, muggle or wizard?” asked Severus, pointedly.

“Touche. 10 points to Snape, sorry Prince, formerly of Slytherin,” replied Harry, and watched a familiar, but loving smirk cross the man’s face.


	3. Head over Heels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Supper followed by sex, Harry and Severus discuss work, bugs and contemplate weekend plans...

“Honey, I’m home!” sang out Harry as he carried in two takeaway bags of Chinese food from the Five Fortunate Bats Restaurant.

He drew out the chopsticks, napkins and sweet and sour sauce for himself and spicy mustard packets for Severus. Two hot and sour soups in plastic tubs and a white carton of pork fried rice, Chicken Lo Mein and broccoli with cashews and beef were spread on the table. He floated over two plates from the corner china cabinet for their meal. They were part of a blue and white set inherited from Severus’ mother showing scenes of magic sites around the world. In light of his restaurant choice he went with a dish showing the Great Wall of China and another that showed the South China karst formations known as Guilin’s Stone Forest. He fetched a few spoons for the soup with a snap of his fingers, lit the candelabra on the table and set a warming charm for a half hour over the food.

A muffled boom from the direction of Severus’ lab made it clear the potion he’d been working on was almost complete. Unlike most potions where an explosion was not what you were looking for, the Guy Fawkes Surprise commissioned by Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes had to include a certain amount of mayhem. And with autumn just around the bend, Harry’s partner was busy amping up production for the November 5th holiday.

Harry retreated to their bedroom and changed into hangout casual black jeans and tee shirt with a bat silhouette and the words “The Bat Whisperer.” His moccasin slippers made no sound on the worn stone floor of the passageway. He sent his patronus through the door to quietly get Severus’ attention without startling him.

His stag returned, accompanied by Snape’s doe patronus, which was attentively following, not exactly fawning. “Out shortly” came Snape’s baritone from the delicate looking silvery creature’s mouth.

Harry chuckled and headed back to the kitchen. He pulled two bottles of Freigeist's Abraxxxas beer from the fridge to go with their meal. He’d originally bought it due to an online recommendation that it worked well with Chinese food. Snape had sputtered as he read the label and nicknamed it Malfoy Beer in honor of Lucius’ late, and not at all lamented, father. As if a Malfoy would be seen in public imbibing something as relentlessly plebian as a beer.

Harry popped his bottle open and had taken a few relaxing pulls when Severus appeared. His hair was pulled back to keep stray hair from contaminating his brews. He rolled up his sleeves, his left arm not blotched with a Death Eater mark, but instead hosting a vibrantly colored tattoo. The snake was now a vibrant green loop with finely detailed scales, its tail held in its mouth, like Ouroboros. The skull had been transformed with a pretty bit of spell work by Harry into a ring with a repeating unbroken Celtic key pattern around which the snake was entwined. That transformation had been Harry’s thank you gift to Severus for his assistance with Harry’s population and migration studies of bats in northwest England and Wales starting last year.

“Trust the British to have a holiday celebrating a failed coup and assassination attempt,” Severus said dryly, seating himself, and clicking his bottle to Harry’s in a toast.

“We’re the people who have a statue to Boudicca in a city she burned to the ground,” Harry pointed out, popping the lids off their soups and passing one to Severus.

Severus grunted his thanks. “Hard to say if it’s pawky British whimsy or tone deafness to irony in that monument’s existence. How’d your week go?”

“Hmm, it was Bechstein’s Bats as the focus. I think we’re getting warm figuring out which woodlands are their territories; I was mostly in southern Wales this week. Wish the little buggers weren’t so darn reclusive,” said Harry, scowling at an innocent bit of tofu on his spoon.

“A good bit of shade and leaf cover for finding bugs is nothing to turn one’s nose up at when one’s an insectivore,” retorted Severus, ripping open a packet of mustard and dunking his shrimp roll in it.

“Do any bugs taste like chicken?” asked Harry curiously.

“Not to my tastebuds. Caterpillars have a bit of calamari’s chewiness but a squishy inside,” offered Snape. “But then I never was one for octopus, except using cuttlefish to dye some foodstuffs black on occasion.”

“Huh. There’s enough variety in human foods to keep me busy for this lifetime,” Harry said, slurping his Lo Mein noisily.

Severus rolled his eyes, but refrained from hexing him, since he was planning on getting laid tonight. Hexes tended not to improve one’s sex life except for the late mad, bad and dangerous to know sadist Bellatrix Lestrange. Neither of them fell into those categories. A bit of bondage or domination in bed might add a bit of spice, though, he mused, as he finished the last bit of shrimp roll. He’d have to think about that a bit… and how he might want to propose this to Harry.


	4. Acquired Skills

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's something to be said for both age and experience...

Harry awoke one weekend morning. In the dim light he could just make out the gleam of his lover's eyes, watching him wake up.

"Somnophilia?" he asked, and was rewarded by the quirk of Severus' right eyebrow, the first of the day.

"Don't strain yourself with polysyllabic words so early in the morning. If I wanted a restful lover, I'd slip him the Draught of Living Death. There are so many more possibilities with a... livelier partner."

"I didn't accuse you of necrophilia, you ex-dungeon dweller," pointed out Harry, snatching a kiss and dodging a smack aimed at his naked rump as he made his way to the loo.

"Pestilent brat," came a rumble from the bed as Harry pulled on sweats, socks and a t-shirt and returned to the warmth of the bed.

"Coffee or a cuddle?" he asked, once he resettled himself comfortably by the larger man's side.

"Both, but reverse the order."

"Done, and done," said Harry resting his head on his lover's bare chest. A strong wiry arm slipped around his shoulders and Severus' long fingers stroked soothingly through Harry's unkempt curls.

"What are you thinking? I can see the wheels spinning," said Harry, watching minute emotions move over the strong planes of Severus' face.

"Marveling at how well we suit one another. Amazing what a salutatory effect a dozen plus years makes to a person's temperament, especially yours."

"Back at you. 'Course you were a menacing sexy beast back then, stressed out and double spying. Don't think I didn't notice you. Finding out you were the Half-Blood Prince just intensified my man-crush. You would have terrified me if you'd been my first lover. All that intensity directed at me would have just been way too much then."

"I was hardly going to molest a bespectacled scrawny seventeen year old virgin, even after we both left Hogwarts," Severus said, tracing Harry's back muscles and lower. "I like some muscles to hold onto, a greater wealth of experience."

"Mm. I think we suit better at 32 and 52, as well." He smiled wickedly. "I've learned a few things, wanna see?" he asked, sliding a hand down to gather Severus' half-hard length in his hand. 

"Enlighten me," ordered Severus with a gasp as Harry dove under the covers and showed him what an excellent teacher in the fine art of fellatio his ex, the horn player, had been.

When Harry had finished to both their satisfactions and they lay panting on the bed, Harry lazily summoned a damp washcloth with a wave and wandless magic so they could clean themselves off.

"Far better I had fun with Chris and a few others to assure myself that you were what I really wanted all along."

"Quite the long game, there, Potter. I thought you came to Wales for the bat-hunting possibilities."

"Well, I did. There are not that many _Myotis_ bats around, so of course I was interested in tracking it--him, you--whatever. I'd heard a rumour you'd headed to Wales from Minerva, so that was another reason I was happy to take over the population and migration studies in this area, in the hopes I might find you among the Muggles while bat gazing."

"The world doesn't contain another such brilliant," he interrupted himself to smooch his the tip of Severus' nose, "disciplined," a peck on the cheek, "sarcastically gifted, son of a bitch who's my type within its bounds," ending with a kiss to the mouth. "It's only a bonus you can change forms into my all-time favorite mammal and help me with my research." 

"Begrudgingly," said Severus, not quite willing to let Harry see yet how much he enjoyed his company, whether Harry was working or they were watching films. "Accio tea! Accio coffee!"


	5. I'll Always Need you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry has news, Severus draws the wrong conclusion and Harry sets him right...

Harry raised his head from his copy of Weisman’s _World Without Us_ and looked over at Severus who was seated next to him, long legs stretched out under the fleecy blanket on their bed.

“What’s on your mind, Man who Lived?’ snarked the Slytherin, taking his eyes from _British Potioneer’s_ Samhain issue to glance sideways at his boyfriend/lover/pick your favorite term. He didn’t care, he knew they mattered to each other.

“I hate that nickname, you know that,” the other man said, annoyed.

Severus relented. “All right. Harry.  Would you like some tea?”

Harry grunted, “Yeah, guess so. Something decaf at this hour. Chamomile?”

Severus put on his slippers and robe and made his way down to the kitchen. There were just too many corners between the master bedroom and the kitchen to try accio’ing the tea if you wanted to get a full mug without spills. He preferred the soothing routine of making a cuppa by hand. He also knew that if he left Harry be to sort out his thoughts alone, the green eyed man would be more forthcoming in conversation, when he finally wanted to talk.

The serious mood Harry had been in these last few days meant something was afoot.

Severus made tea for two, wondering what the murder of crows a few fields over were agitated about, the chorus of harsh cawing was very insistent. He took Harry’s mug with a picture of Bat Boy and his alchemists conference swag mug from last year’s meeting and trekked back upstairs.

“Thanks. Starting to get chilly at night.”

“Mm,” agreed Severus, placing his robe on the blanket chest at the end of their bed, kicking off his slippers and reinserting himself by Harry’s side, letting the warmth of the bedclothes seep into his limbs.

“Know anything about the Fae, how they sealed their lands' borders?”

Severus shook his head. “No. We probably wouldn’t want to know. I expect it was a harsh payment in blood and magic to separate their world away so completely from that of muggles and even other magical beings.”

“Yeah, it’s a magic so different from ours that I don’t even know if I could wrap my head around it. Maybe Luna could.” He took a deep breath. “I told my employer that I was giving them six months’ notice—after this last project’s funding ends in the spring, they’ll have to find someone else to tag and track bats. I’m sure my doctoral advisor can add a few names to my suggestions for a successor.”

Severus waited to hear what other changes Harry was planning in his life. His heart gave a lurch, he thought they were a settled pair, was he going to find himself back alone, and Harry moving on to another younger lover as well as a new job? He tried to keep a stone face, he wasn’t going to react until he knew where things stood with them.

“Sev?” Harry’s hand brushed against his cheek. “Are you mad that I didn’t discuss this with you before I went ahead and did it?” His lover raised troubled eyes to meet his.

“Thwarting someone from your house is like trying to use a garden hose on a wildfire. One is likely to get burns,” said Severus, using humor to delay answering. “What else are you planning?”

“Well, that really depends on you, my Snake,” replied Harry, raising his eyebrows in a questioning look.

Severus braced himself for the worst news. “Are you breaking up with me? A new lover to go with your new job?”

Harry looked at him astounded. “How the hell did you make that leap? I love you, I’m not going anywhere unless you force me to. And even then I’ll come back to haunt you, gorgeous.”

He drew Severus into his arms and held on fiercely. “Paranoid bastard, what else do I need to do to let you know we’re a pair and are gonna stay that way?” He rolled atop Severus and pinned his wrists beside his head. Green eyes glared into hurt dark ones. “You’re mine, got that? I’m yours. How could you think otherwise?”

Severus stared a minute longer before nodding. “Yes Harry, I know that, I just… worry,” he said, before he let most of the tension flow out of his body. Harry took his mouth in a demanding kiss, nipping at his lips, and placing a kiss at the tip of his beaky nose. A murmured Divesto from Harry and they were both naked. Harry pulled the sheets and blankets over them and settled his body more firmly atop Severus.

Severus felt grounded and centered, being pinned by his lover’s muscular weight.

“I think I need to do something dramatic to prove my love for you, Sev,” murmured Harry as he peppered Severus’ face with kisses. “Maybe fight a basilisk, slay a dark lord, save the world… oh wait, I did that already,” Harry added, smirking. “I’ll just have to come up with something new to impress you.”

“Does saving the world at seventeen mean the rest of your life is a letdown, then?” teased Severus.

“Mmm, no, you never could be,” said Harry decidedly, and shifted himself to lick the other man’s throat on the way to teasing his pink nipples with swipes of his hot wet tongue, sucking the needy little points until they stood erect.

“The world needs saving still, but I’ll tell you about it after I convince my man how much I need him in my bed and in my life.” His hand took Severus’ half-hard cock in his hand and began an up and down stroking motion. “And I think you need me too, hmmm?”

“Always,” agreed Severus, groaning, as Harry’s clever fingers began to work their magic on his gonads. “Good, don’t forget that,” ordered Harry, and lightly squeezed his balls in warning, amping up his lover’s desire. “I want to feel you in my mouth and body, I need you to claim me.”

Their discussion about why and how Harry might need to save the world—again—was shelved until the next day.


	6. Saving the World--Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry lays out his plans for the future and wants Severus' help saving the world.

It was one of those autumn weekend days that was a cliché in modern Muggle advertising. They had a full English breakfast, then Harry proposed a walk, and while Severus made sandwiches for lunch out, Harry brewed coffee and lemonade and shrunk the thermos and flask to put in his knapsack. They put on hiking boots and black jeans and Severus took the time to sneak a look at Harry’s arse as he swayed in front of a bureau, debating which bat themed long sleeve shirt and fleece top would work with the chilly breeze. His final decision was one reading “Husband of the Old Bat.”

Severus had declined the offer of a matching one reading “I’m his old bat”, not feeling the need to tell the entire world about their relationship. The lads at the local pub had figured out they were a couple after Harry made a half-dozen visits in his company and had proven his worth on trivia night by knowing far too much about American football and modern culture. What the hell difference was there between a Cardassian versus a Kardashian, anyway? Harry seemed to pick up such mysterious nuances of trivia from his workmates the way a bibliomaniac acquired incunabula.

The only reaction to his plus one’s appearance at the local was that he got was Davy asking, “does he like old movies like you do, Prince?”

“I’m still in the process of educating him. He is being eased into an appreciation of Hitchcock, Cukor and Arzner. I’m weaning him away from rom-coms,” he added with a shudder of distaste.

“Teach the young dog new tricks, huh?”

Severus sighed thinking of all the water under the bridge in his and Harry’s lives. “You have no idea how long this old dog was teaching young curs lessons until my resignation before I moved here.”

Severus snorted softly to himself as he considered just how many years he’d been teaching Harry one way or another. He pondered his clothing choices for hiking with Harry and decided that he far preferred how they learned from each other, now. It was a mating of two equals, birthdates be damned. The sheer intelligence and curiosity of the energetic younger man more than kept Severus on his toes, not resting of the laurels of his greater life experience.

He put on his sweatshirt reading Black Death World Tour 1347-51 depicting a flea ridden rat on the front with a list of cities decimated by the Great Plague on the back like a heavy metal band t-shirt with tour dates. Thank the gods Harry shared his warped sense of humor.

They explored Brecon Castle in the morning, Harry burning off some of his energy climbing up and down stone walls and going along narrow parapets before they drove to Craig-y-Nos Country Park for their picnic. It was late enough in the autumn that children were involved in sports and school activities rather than out in nature and there were few other people nearby as they ate their meal and lay on the soft earth where Harry had applied a cushioning spell before spreading out a wool blanket.

“So what are your plan for spring when the conservancy lets your contract expire? You said you wanted to go and save the world again?” prompted Severus, turning his head to look at Harry who was lying on his back beside him.

“Yeah, I think I do,” said Harry and rolled onto his side facing his lover, who mirrored his actions propping a head up on his hand and a bent elbow.

Severus raised a quizzical eyebrow and waited.

“It’s a lot of things—I guess I’d start with—what would you say, besides hunger for power and a lousy home life as a child drives Dark Lords?”

“Insanity of some sort, hatred of muggles or a desire to lessen their influence on wizards,” answered Severus promptly.

“Yeah, well, duh. Of course they influence us, there are so many of them versus so few of us, leaving aside whether their influence is a good or bad thing—it is a fact. Such a numerical imbalance that you could even say magical folk are an endangered species. Not from hangings or witch-burnings anymore, but because, like bats or gorillas, there’s less and less space for us in the muggle world. Our habitat is shrinking—and notice-me-not charms and wards can only hold for so long. The centaurs are alarmed at how many fewer stargazing sites there are than even a century ago, due to light pollution,” said Harry, warming to outlining the problem.

“We wouldn’t have witch burnings, we’d just become lab rats of nefarious research groups in governments or end up embroiled in more muggle wars if we exposed ourselves and came out of the broom closet,” pointed out Severus cynically. “How do you propose to change things?”

“I want to save the animals that humans are killing off directly and indirectly and take them to magically safe places, or better yet, make the places where they presently live unplottable, so muggles can no longer find them. We can create pockets of space to be sanctuaries for us and other threatened creatures, set apart from the rest of the world, like the Fae did with their courts under the hills. I want to seek to solve the problems that come about because, as you’ve pointed out, there are far too many idiots breeding yet more idiots.”

“Oh, that’s a completely doable goal, shouldn’t take but a century or five,” teased Severus, affection in his voice.

“I’m not going to become the next Dark Lord and try to kill them off, that’s dreadful and stupid and besides, it just doesn’t work. There are too many millions of people on the planet for even all our magic to subdue, even if magical folk could agree on such a horrible solution, which of course we wouldn’t.”

"So, what if we, instead of increasing deaths, prevented births? If there were decreased fertility and people had none, one or two kids instead of three or more? People’s fertility already is being affected by pollution—at least men’s sperm counts are—so supernatural causes like potions in the water, or in coffee, the second most traded commodity in the world, would hardly be suspected."

“It reeks of eugenics, Harry, like how squibs used to be left to die or were cast out in some wizarding communities centuries back.”

“Not singling out any one group or people. Just doing it all over the world, and randomly. On a more positive note, what if we used magic to develop ways to get plastic out of the oceans, or a cure for white nose fungus in my bats or stop the hive die-offs in honeybees? This opens up a host of jobs for young witches and wizards and it’s a project everyone at all ages and levels of magic could contribute to. Everyone can have a bit of land they guard with their magic, keep away from muggles, seas that could become uncharted again… I know Luna and her family would be willing to help out with rescuing magical and non magical creatures. They already work to establish muggle conservancies and magical refuges.”

“Here there be sea monsters,” murmured Severus, his gaze unfocused as he recalled older manuscript maps he had seen. “It’s true, people are far more interested in what goes on in fashion or the latest Sacred 28 engagement in the wizarding world, than in science or the greater world. You would have to convince them that it’s in their best interest to do this, to use their magic to sort out things to have the world we want, which would involve far fewer muggles.”

Harry nodded. “I know it’s very tricky. And it would have to be a large percentage of us doing this, infiltrating muggle organizations… and it risks exposure of the magical community. But I don’t think incremental reforms such as Hermione pushes through will be enough in the time we have left before all the natural resources are gone, or oil is too expensive to pump out of the ground with non-magical technology. When all the cheap energy sources are gone, in a lot of cases there’s not much to replace them and there will be a lot of hungry, belligerent people. Magic could be one of those things to help--but only if there are a lot fewer muggles. I mean, I can see a lot of ways this could go badly when people go hungry, need work and the planet is a lot less friendly and hotter place.”

“Tribalism. Hardwired us-them responses in magic and non-magic humans. You’re not just suggesting a new job, but establishing a social movement, not saving the wizarding world, but the whole world, my love.”

“I have the name recognition to do this. People love me or hate me, but they know who I am and that fame I ran away from at 17 is something I want to use now at 32. They’ll be all the more eager to read about me since I was out of the limelight for a dozen years. But I wanted to see whether you can stand to be written about and interviewed if I started this crusade, because I want you by my side,” said Harry, reaching his hand out to clasp Severus’.

“You know it’s a damn good thing wizards live a very long time, and that I am utterly besotted and spoil you dreadfully,” started Severus, in scolding tones.

“Pretty please, can I save the world just one more time?” whined Harry, sounding like a seven year old wanting ice cream before supper. “And you’ll help me with this too?”

“Brat. You always have my backing. Life is never boring with you,” said Severus, and pulled Harry into his arms and a kiss.

 


End file.
